Town captain David Norris says sacked manager Roy Keane could still go on to become a top boss, despite his failure at Portman Road. Keane’s 20-month spell at Town came to an end on Thursday when Marcus Evans gave him the bad news by phone.
Norris said: "I wouldn’t be surprised if he went on to another job and did really well. He said himself he’s always learning. He came from Sunderland and said he was a better manager for being there and I’m sure he’ll go on to be a better manager for being here.
"He did a great job at Sunderland and I’m sure he’s as disappointed as anyone else that it hasn’t worked out for him here.”
The 29-year-old says he heard of Keane’s departure on Friday morning: "I had a phone call from the chief exec saying that there’s going to be changes in the management and that he was coming to the training ground to speak to me and to speak to the players. He came in and elaborated on that and told us what’s going to happen over the next few days.”
According to reports the Sunderland squad celebrated Keane’s Stadium of Light exit, but Norris says this wasn’t the case at Town. The former Plymouth man believes that the players feel some responsibility for their manager’s departure, which despite the recent run still came as a shock: "It’s a sad day for us, the manager’s lost his job and us as players are accountable for that.
"We’ve got to look at ourselves as the manager will look at himself. We’ve played our part in people losing jobs, so obviously it’s a sad day.”
Norris dismissed suggestions that Keane ruled Portman Road by fear: "Any manager can have their moments where they’re pretty angry, especially if you’re not playing well, but you’ve got to be able to take that.
"For the majority of it, he’s quite calculated in what he says, he clearly thinks about it when he says it and he’ll talk it through.”
Norris says it’s difficult to speculate on whether Keane would have turned things around given more time: "It’s hard to say. I think the club will say they gave him a lot of time, but I’m sure the gaffer would say he would have liked to have been given a bit longer, maybe to see things out to the end of the season. The club made the decision and there’s nothing else we can do about that.”
The skipper says he and his team-mates should enjoy Sunday’s FA Cup trip to Chelsea, even if it’ll be a big ask to progress to the next round: "It was always going to be a tough game, one of the best teams in the world, a top Premiership team.
"But it’s something we should be looking forward to. These are almost bonus games where we can go out and test ourselves against the best players.”